Pressure group, #FixTheCountry Movement, has withdrawn its petition against the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Jean Mensa over the disenfranchisement of the people of Santrokofi, Akpafu, Lolobi, and Likpe (SALL) of Oti region in the 2020 general elections.
The pressure group is invoking the constitutional processes for the removal of the Chair and Deputies of the election management body.
According to the movement, the conduct of Jean Mensa and her deputies “meets the threshold of stated misbehaviour and, or incompetence as required under Article 146 of the 1992 Constitution for the removal of these officials.
The petitioners comprise lawyers, academics, students, public and private sector employees, unemployed and homeless Ghanaians, and cuts across all political persuasions and ethnicity.
In a statement on Friday, July 14, 2023, the petitioners said they had lost faith in the integrity of the process after a long wait for institutional action on the petition.
It said “We the petitioners, after 2 years of seeing various constitutional officers fail to live up to their constitutional responsibilities in this matter, have become convinced of a lack of interest or urgency in pursuing the justice of our plant and have as such lost faith in the integrity of the process.
“The refusal to act on the petition was due to a deliberate and collaborationist decision by the then Chief Justice to hide behind contrived proceduralism in order to allow room for the frivolous filibustering devices of Madam Jean Mensa.”
The petitioners said they had decided to withdraw the petition in order to exercise our democratic right to withdraw this petition, in order that the Constitution will no further be mocked by the indolence of actors who have been assigned the task of its protection.
It added: “In reaching this decision, we have considered the best interest of our democracy, and taken further account of our refusal to lend ourselves to any process that will ultimately be used to whitewash clear evidence of egregious misconduct. In addition, we see no reason why we should participate in the persistence of what has so clearly become a charade.”
